the distance between hearts
by Pandastacia
Summary: He's the only one to notice that her jeans don't fit just right anymore, that she spends most of her time trying to pull them up. Sometimes, he wants to open his mouth and ask if it's all okay, if maybe she wanted help.


**_disclaimer: i do not own naruto or anything/anyone affiliated with it. the plot, however, belongs to moi.  
dedication: _to hikari_adams, for talking & enjoying ItaSaku with me; to Saraa & Les, for kinda being my family & telling me i do not, in fact, suck.**

**_notes:_** i have this thing about... well, it doesn't really matter. jeans. i have a thing about _jeans_. yes, like denim. no, not like chromosomes. & i have a thing about the small things- the things people don't notice & that, when they do, they play off as Nothing Major. all of this, i think, explains this piece of work. therefore, i hope it makes you think. read&review with your thoughts?

* * *

Destruction has this way with subtly.

It doesn't come around with lightning and thunder and all the power that fire hath. Its steps don't echo as it creeps down toward humanity.

It squishes it beneath its heel.

Perhaps that's how he first read the signs.

::::

Destruction doesn't have to take many.

It knows how to rock the boat when no one is looking. The small things give it away, but no one looks for the one weak link.

One misstep and everyone is drenched.

Perhaps only Itachi felt the first drops of heavenly tears.

::::

Just like destruction, the signs are small. All of those emails the school sent everyone ("_Important Message for Students About Mental Health"_) after a suicide at one of the other schools- Tokyo, he believe- listed signs. Swift sudden changes in attitude and/or dress- unusual behavior- changes in priorities- events that could trigger "bad mental health"- talks or thoughts about death or suicide.

They don't talk about the slow death, the way sometimes death doesn't just _look_ you in the eyes- it turns its head slowly so you don't recognize it until you're literally staring it in the face. When it's too late. They only think about the obvious differences- the way impatient people go about getting by. They only considered those that actually don't care if they lived or died- the blatant signs and not-so-quiet cries for help.

Not the ones that really don't _care_.

Not the ones who don't care about time as long as it ends for them.

He's the only one to notice that her jeans don't fit just right anymore, that she spends most of her time trying to pull them up. As far as he had been concerned, she had been like the rest of the petite girls in the world- in love with their skinny jeans because they need every visual inch the world would give them.

This all leaves his mind when he starts seeing _flare_. There is… space, in her jeans. There is logic to her quiet hysteria- flare jeans are _supposed_ to be roomy, not clinging to every particle of skin. No one notices the thin crease in her jeans that are her legs, pressing against denim as she walks around toothpick legs.

They are supposed to remain ignorant.

Sometimes, he wants to open his mouth and ask if it's all okay, if maybe she wanted help.

Somewhere, though, deep under his skin, somewhere near his stomach, something _jumps._ He knows- he knows!- that his idea of help doesn't agree with hers and that all he'll do is lose his chance.

(_He sometimes considers chances._

_And how many people get._

_And when you know you're out of them.)_

But they're not that close. She was his brother's friend- not his- and she's- he doesn't know how young she is- just that she is someone's special someone.

Not his.

So he doesn't see what right he has to interfere with her life.

::::

They say there's something wrong about people who think about death and those who go through drastic actions to achieve some twisted sense of reality.

Them.

But who _doesn't_ think of death? Who doesn't wonder when their last day will arrive? Is it really _unnatural_ to consider that death is the only option?

Itachi thinks about this when he's reading the news about the latest case of suicides in the United States. He knows that some people look down on those people- _"Death isn't the answer! They must be unbalanced!_"- because… it's just people and actions, right? It's just words and horrific videos and lack of acceptance, right?

But it isn't.

He stands slightly behind his younger brother as they stand stiffly at Sakura's front door. Her parents were out of town and she had asked Sasuke if she could get a ride to the mall from him.

Shopping.

The silence in the air doesn't eat away at anything as it comes with peace. Antagonism is not really the game the two of them play- no words are just something between common souls.

"How is she?" Itachi asks quietly as they both hear a soft landing on the other side of the door.

Sasuke's breath feathers in the air as he tilts his head slightly so as to look at him through his peripheral vision.

"It's Sakura." Right before the door opens, he adds, "She's always coming out, smiling like stupid sunshine."

He isn't really sure of the analysis. As he glimpses a pale face and lackluster pink hair, he's even less sure.

When she closes the door, a small sheet of paper falls out from between the glass door and lands on the patio. Her face is even more fragile when sunlight hits it from between skeletal tree branches as she walks over the pamphlet in heeled boots. Between the muddy smudges, Itachi reads "Body image" and unpretty words like "bulimia" and "anorexia".

They go to the mall.

::::

Suicide is not the only kind of destruction. There is also a loss of soul- of heart. Deception is a close friend to destruction, bleeding into someone until they're tainted.

Sakura is tainted.

Was there a point- or a line- to cross where he was supposed to say something?

How would he know when there is no going back?

Most importantly…

How come no one else can see what he sees?

The answer, he eventually comes to find, is that he's unbiased. He knows very little about Sakura, so he doesn't have any expectations of what to see- not the bright look in her eyes that has dimmed to dying starlight as of late. Not the way her elbows are a little too pointy. Not the way that he catches her looking for size XXL sweatshirts on their occasional mall trips.

It takes a while- a while of observation and names like "pedophile" to realize something.

It isn't because she doesn't think she is beautiful.

Maybe on some level she cares about her appearance, but it's more than about high cheekbones and model-esque legs. He doesn't quite understand why she'd seek such pain, but…

He's not sure he wants to know.

There's something, he admits to himself, that has to do with interfering with her life. They don't know each other very well, even after all of these shopping trips. Being nosey has never been his goal in life. He's lived an organized life, his business in one pile and everything else tossed into the metaphorical trash.

He sometimes wonders, when he gives up on _not_ thinking about her, if she cares if people notice. Does she notice that no one has done _anything_- does she wonder if people see her too?

Is it the right time? Can he wait? Can she get better on her own?

Yes, he thinks quickly, she can get better. She could look less one dimensional- fill the world with her grace. There can be something bigger and better.

Before now, Itachi hadn't realized how close he's grown to Sakura- emotionally, at least. Perhaps it's a byproduct of his unintentional focus on her.

This… this is a slow death. It doesn't come within a moment. Pain drags out for a long while, as bones grind against bones and skin clasps onto everything beneath it. Translucent, her skin doesn't stop the sun.

In the end, that pulls him together.

Sometimes a person is another one's last chance. You don't have a choice about it- you are it, the last guard of someone's life. Sometimes you fuck up because of fear. Maybe there's someone else out there who can change her mind.

…

But what if there isn't?

Itachi… he doesn't want to feel guilt fall on his back until he's bent like a straw.

The fact is that too late is not one point in time. It starts the day you don't make a move and lasts into however many forevers exist after that point. Too late… Too late is a long time.

::::

All it takes is one action.

_Knock, knock_.

He's alone on the patio and waiting. His breath is caught between his teeth and hisses out like a dying car on its last tank of gas.

There's no part of him that tells him that he can do this- this… emotional thing. It's never been his strong point and his eyes are circled in black from tossing and turning all night, nervous about taking action.

Scared.

He is scared.

He is scared of a truth that he hasn't really admitted yet- even to himself. He is scared because he doesn't know if Sakura has confronted it.

He doesn't want to hurt her.

He doesn't want to put anymore weight on a girl already giving herself daily shots of pain.

The door opens, though, and he hears a soft voice.

"Itachi?"

He takes a deep breath to steady his nerves. Not shallow- deep, like the ocean he had set himself up to swim across. He is going to pull through this,

It's a leap of courage, this taking someone else's life into your own hands and swimming with it across that ocean. Faith, maybe, but facing that slow destruction that no one lived through… it means looking into dark places for the things that drive you out of your mind most. It's stepping out of your comfort zone for the good of someone else.

It's opening your mouth and saying, "I think we need to talk."

It's stepping forward through the doorway.

It's sitting down at a breakfast table, where the day starts, and trying to open someone to a new world.

When she bites at her bottom lip and tries to look anywhere else, he gently cradles her chin in his right hand and says, "It's okay to be afraid. But you don't have to be afraid alone."

She sags, but she hasn't given up. "I'm not afraid. Who ever said I'm afraid?"

It's in his eyes when he looks at her face without judging lens. '_You didn't think I would see?'_

"It's all over you- your smell, your eyes, the way that you can't control it. You… you need help."

He forces out those words- the ones no one wants to hear- as her face crumples and she finally lets him hold her up as she finally stops hiding.

"I'm... not afraid. I just... I'm so _weak_..."

Her voice shatters as she sobs the one word he had... well, somewhat expected. That, by no means, meant it was any easier to hear.

"It'll be okay- you are strong… I'll be here. For you."

Strength- the strength that came from denying yourself something- that is just fear. Strength came from looking at yourself after taking off rose-colored glasses and not looking for all of your weaknesses. See the whole truth.

Words are just words- syllables floating on the wind.

But he is a man of his word.

He won't leave her in the darkness other people forced her to create.

:::

The thing about life is that it's never easy. It holds ugly truths and beautiful lies in equal measure, but we are allowed to choose which we pick.

Hiding… it's easy, for a while. It hurts, though, as we slowly destroy ourselves in an effort to make it through bittersweet time.

In truth, everyone- _everyone-_ needs someone to break through their private hell. Shelter is found in unlikely places as each finds one person who sees them for who they are.

They find somewhere where they don't have to deny what is life anymore.

The first day Sakura walks into college after spending all spring and summer, everyone says she looks different. They try explaining it, but none hit the truth. She just smiles and laughs, looking as radiant as the first of July.

But he knows.

And as she tangles her fingers in his briefly as she walks down the hall of the human resource building, he feels that flutter. It's more than just the warmth of her palm against his.

It's more than how he wonders their weekly Friday dinners will go from now on as he watches her glow as she makes her way forward.

It's the last thing left in the face of near-destruction.

Hope.

* * *

so after a long draught (& swearing that i would stick with orig!fic, thankyouverymuch), i have... not really returned to fandom so much as indulging my wild muse.

-pandastacia


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